The change to your tariff only takes place at the time of despatch -though I doubt they would have a problem with you asking them to force through the upgrade and tariff change in back office while the phone itself is still on back order. This used to happen when I was a manager at CPW years ago - in the days of the V3, especially the hot pink they went on backorder frequently and we were able to get Acton to close the transaction of customers wanted to retain their renewal date (annual at that time) rather than wait for the phone.
I got mine (7+ 256 MB) on Monday which was a relief as I am in Asia for a month. Had also ordered with EE on a store pick up that arrived at the store as my plane taxiied out first thing on Tuesday morning...
I don't think they should be charging people until despatch - they can easily take a preauthorisation at preorder stage and then take the money on despatch...
